Paul, one of our more active and engaged listeners, wrote us recently as follows (with edits):
I was a Sirius radio 131 [Family Talk] baby. Since I was in my truck 12 to 16 hours a day that was the only way to receive God's Word, so I had teaching from everyone … I always tried not to miss the Bible Answer Man broadcast with Hank Hanegraaff. I thought this man to be a very learned person in God's Word …
One day I caught the tail end of his reply to a caller about the Rapture. It was the first time I'd heard him speak of the Rapture so I was very curious not knowing much about the rapture except bits and pieces coming from sermons on the radio …
Hank's reply to the caller about the Rapture bothered me because I really thought all the [Sirius]131 pastors would more than likely be on the same page about the Rapture, some with different ideas but still the belief in the Rapture. Come to find out, Hank is not on the same page.
Paul sent some excerpts from Mr. Hanegraaff’s broadcasts, and I did some further research of my own.
Let me stop and state: This is not intended to be a rebuttal or rebuke of Mr. Hanegraaff … although it may sound like one. It’s just an opportunity I want to take to explore an alternate to pre-trib doctrine, which is our doctrine, from a very popular Christian teacher who we all know is incredibly knowledgeable about the Bible. He is the “Bible Answer Man,” after all.
I should also say that Mr. Hanegraaff would definitely beat me and Andy at Bible Jeopardy! Wipe the floor with us, no doubt. But it’s important to keep in mind that biblical truth and wisdom from God aren’t measured in terms of learning. If that were true, the deans and professors at our seminaries would pretty much be guaranteed a high position in the Kingdom of Heaven. Does anyone out there think that is true?
And let’s not forget Acts 4:13. This is right after John and Peter faced the Sanhedrin – which was like a governing body of seminary deans and professors – and made a speech before them about who Jesus was. In verse 13, the Bible says: “[A]s they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed.”
The point is that while we certainly agree knowledge is important, especially when it’s knowledge of God’s Word, it is not a measure of who can best understand and communicate God’s truth.
On to Mr. Hanegraaff. In a recent broadcast,* speaking of 1 Thess. 4, he said: “This is not a passage on a pre-tribulational rapture. It is a great and glorious thesis on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nowhere in this passage do you find Jesus coming down from heaven, hovering in mid-air, then turning around and taking people to heaven for seven years while Jews get butchered in this Holy Land. This is completely missing from the text. It is something that is imposed on the passage but the passage certainly doesn’t communicate it.” (emphasis added)
But let’s look at 1 Thess 4:16-17: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
So Mr. Hanegraaff is half right – or half wrong – depending on how you want to look at it. The passage does describe, in his words, “Jesus coming down from heaven” and “hovering in mid-air” – assuming you envision “in the clouds” and “in the air” to be mid-air. What you don’t find in this passage is Jesus “taking people to heaven for seven years while Jews get butchered in this Holy Land.” But I don’t know that anyone is claiming 1 Thess. is about that. We certainly aren’t. For that part, you need to consult other prophetic passages.
In his broadcast, Mr. Hanegraaff moved from 1 Thess. to the first few verses of Revelation and focused on the introduction to the letters to the churches. He zeros in on some key words in chapter 1, verses 1 and 3. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place … Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.”
Mr. Hanegraaff says, “It’s an unconscionable abuse of language to say that those words – ‘soon’ and ‘near’ – mean thousands of years hence or a far away age of time.”
My question: Those verses introduce the entire book of Revelation. Is Mr. Hanegraaff suggesting all of the events detailed in the Revelation have occurred? If so, he would have to explain when Jesus ruled over the earth for 1,000 years and, more to the point, where the New Jerusalem is and why sin and death still exist, since Revelation prophesies their end …
Of course, I’m being silly. Everyone, including Mr. Hanegraaff, knows that at least some of the events in Revelation will occur in the future. And that means they would, in fact, be “thousands of years hence” or “a far away age of time” from the Apostle John’s perspective. Later in the broadcast, Mr. Hanegraaff even talks about this: “[A]s all books of the Bible, there’s also an eternal perspective that is provided,” he says. “So if you go from Rev 1:3 to Rev. 21:3, you see that Jesus returns in the end as well.”
So what’s this “unconscionable abuse of language” all about? I think perhaps Mr. Hanegraaff means it’s unconscionable to make the 'letters to the churches' portion of Revelation about future events. But is it? I mean, it would be unconscionable to say the letters were not for real churches from the first century. We know they were. It would be incorrect to say they did not speak of events and issues from that time. They did. But as Pastor Whipple pointed out many times during his ministry, the Bible functions on multiple levels. Each letter ends with that key phrase indicating there is something deeper there for mature Christians (of any time period): “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says …”
There are also prophecies in the letters. For instance, the letter to Thyatira promises: “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star.” I am not aware of anyone from a first-century church rising to this level of God-given power and authority, so it seems this must be about “an age of time” that hasn’t happened yet.
This is the crux of the matter. Mr. Hanegraaff seems to believe that certain events we view as coming in the future were already fulfilled in the past. In the broadcast, he makes a statement that gave me pause: “The coming of Christ in judgment on Jerusalem on a prostituted bride riding a beast is something that’s going to happen in the near future for those to whom the Apostle John is writing” – by which I think he means it happened already from our perspective in time.
He continues later: “So there’s a coming of Christ in judgment but there’s also a Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And when He comes, the text says, that ‘the dwelling of God is now with men …’” And he goes on to quote the rest of that passage from Rev. 21.
It seems Mr. Hanegraaff believes Christ’s judgment has already happened, and I would like to know what scriptural support exists for that idea? (Honestly. This is a new one for me. I know a lot of judgment-level events happened back then, but how was that Christ's judgment?) He also seems to suggest Christ’s Second Coming is about establishing the New Heaven and New Earth. But to get that from the text, you have to skip from Revelation 19 to Revelation 21, jumping over the Millennial Kingdom in Revelation 20.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts on our discussion forum and help us continue our exploration of this issue, which can certainly be a point of division among Christians today. In Berean fashion, we ask that you provide scriptural support for your point of view.
Posted by Jordan
-----
* “The Value of Christian Education with Paul Maurer and Q&A,” Hank Hanegraaff, Bible Answer Man broadcast, 8/27/2015
No comments:
Post a Comment